


The Pupil

by kanadka



Series: have a holly jao-ly christmas [2]
Category: The Course of Empire - Eric Flint
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Conditioning, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28131663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanadka/pseuds/kanadka
Summary: Wrem-fa: where the body learns, and the mind struggles to catch up.
Series: have a holly jao-ly christmas [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2086407
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Pupil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Athaia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athaia/gifts).



"Not standing like that!" barked Yaut.

Tully tried to reposition himself. He wasn't entirely sure what the problem was...

Yaut thwacked him in the legs with the Subcommandant's walking stick, on the backs of the calves, then once in the crook of the inside of his knee until he buckled just slightly. Yaut hoisted him back upright by scooping him up under the shoulders with a painful grip. Tully was awkwardly positioned there, feet apart and knees slightly-bent. "Respectful," decided Yaut, "and ready-to-serve."

But behind them, the Subcommandant had already stepped away from them, walking onward. Yaut struck him _hard_ upside the head. " _Wrong_ ," said Yaut. "Get going."

Tully fell into line behind the Subcommandant and Yaut struck him a second time, harder. "Being wrong again," he said. He grabbed Tully by the biceps and squeezed hard, like he was trying to pop a sausage out of its casing - and if he wasn't careful, that famed Jao strength would guarantee that - and dragged Tully in front of the Subcommandant, hurling him into place.

"Fine," muttered Tully, "I'll go first, Jesus. You could've just _said_ so."

Yaut struck him again, cuffing him upside the head. Not a surprise. Back talk gets back hand, Tully gathered.

Tully's first day of service consisted of leading these two around the base all day. It was hard, hot work in the sunlight, a far cry from the cooler mountain air he was used to, but unless he found some way to escape, he'd never have that again.

Tully could not wait to escape. But his best play, while he cooled his heels, waiting for an opening, was to recon as much info as he could.

This was why, later at night, when he'd been left alone so Yaut and the Subcommandant could talk in the next room, Tully took some time, trying to figure out the technology in the Subcommandant's quarters. Poking around and playing around with this and that. He couldn't read the text, he had hardly any idea what he was doing. Hopefully not deleting all the files. But going off what Yaut had done earlier, it couldn't be that hard.

Yaut caught him at it, returning just as he figured out how to work the file manager.

Tully one hundred percent expected to be beaten, but Yaut did not. And Tully _knew_ Yaut had seen him at it - had certainly felt the weight of his gaze and if that weren't enough, he'd made eye contact with those eerie black depths. So confusing, these Jao.

***

_"Get back!" Mama screaming, "It's too dangerous!"_

_Elisa has gathered him in her arms because Gabe's little legs don't run very fast. She's running too and she shouldn't be able to carry him like this, she's only nine herself, and Gabe was always, well, a healthy toddler, despite the lack of food in the refugee camp._

_They haven't eaten in days. Mama did some scary things in a shack he didn't recognise and there was a lot of sound but that got them food, maybe Mama can do that again?_

_But there's a large boom sound and big old orange curdling-milk-in-tea mushroom is behind them and it's eating the trees._

_Elisa is gone, Gabe is alone now. Elisa has been gone since Gabe was fourteen. Gabe is an adult with the gangly legs of his awkward teenage years. The flow thickens and stretches._

_The mushroom is a tall Jao with wide shoulders and a spherical head and it's fuzzy and has whiskers but not in a friendly kitten way. The Jao's hand raises and it swings down like an axe and Gabe goes sprawling._

_There's fireworks, he thinks, but no lights - Yaut prepares to strike him again -_

_"I getting all your resistance secrets now," sneers Yaut in his broken-English, thick Jao accent._

_Then the ground gulps him down like so much meat and he's sinking, sinking, sinking -_

Tully woke to darkness outside. The light from the computer terminal was blinding. Yaut was stationed there, poking around on the computer. He noticed very quickly that the pattern of Tully's breath had changed and twisted around. His posture shifted - his neck elongated, sea lion-like, and his shoulders drew back and up. His whiskers drooped and his three fingers curled, the thumb held straight.

Yaut was annoyed at the interruption, thought Tully, but he couldn't really say why he knew that with such certainty, besides that Yaut was always annoyed.

***

Days passed. Yaut's English got better; Tully's Jao didn't.

Tully, having tried to escape, had now been shock-collared for it, but that didn't change anything, he was _still_ being hit. He had been told he was to be a member of the Subcommandant's personal service, but as of yet there was no real job position for him besides that. Well, except one position - Yaut kept whacking his legs into submission - the same posture, always, feet apart, knees slightly bent - and then hauling him this way and that so Tully could lead them all over the base again. As though the Subcommandant really needed a guide anymore! He knew where everything was, he didn't need Tully showing them the sights.

There had to be a system to Yaut's beatings, Tully felt. He was consistent, just not in a pattern Tully could really make sense of. When they set out, Yaut beat him until he took the lead of the group. When he opened the door to the vehicles for the Subcommandant, Yaut beat him again. Okay, that one made sense - the Subcommandant's arms weren't broke, he could open his own damn car door. And Jao prized usefulness, so Tully expected it was because it was such an un-useful gesture, a waste of a movement. But when Tully saluted or bowed, Yaut beat him. When he nodded or shook his head, Yaut beat him. Tully stopped doing both of those, but Yaut _still_ beat him. Yaut beat him when he stood still.

Tully didn't get it. He had a sneaking suspicion Yaut was trying to teach him something - the Subcommandant alluded that he was some kind of trainer, though Tully was most familiar with the term _fraghta_ meaning an adviser, expert, or assassin - maybe all three at the same time, knowing the Jao - but what the hell was Yaut trying to teach him? How to be a more useful servant for the Subcommandant? _Why bother?_

It had put a damper on his escape plans, that was for sure. Not until Tully could figure out a way around this damn collar could he leave, and he was _not_ willing to endure the shock again. Sticking your finger in an outlet as a dumb kid had nothing on that experience.

***

Tully couldn't deny that at least he was being fed more regularly. He refused to allow it to be a moment of positivity. What would be next, 'oh, Yaut's got feelings too'? Give me a break, Tully thought.

Besides, it was Earth food, alright, but it was Earth food requisitioned for Jao use, proportioned off by the _generosity_ of his new master. They make us grow crops, then they tax them from us, is that how it's going to be? Tully wondered if he'd get a feudal serf name, too. Instead of Carter or Fletcher or Miller it'd be Kid The Fraghta Beats For Funsies.

Goddammit, Tully was *tired* of being beat. He was hazed in the military when he was posted undercover by the Resistance. He went through Resistance training and it wasn't pretty. He was roughed around in the refugee camps because - well, because everybody got roughed around, the refugee camps were no joke. Thousands of people crammed into a tiny little place with no running water, no privacy, no food, constant Jao patrols, the stink of being so closely bound with other people. Nobody was nice and some were meaner than others so eventually that meant that _everybody_ had grown mean.

Sometimes Tully wondered if that was the real reason he joined the Resistance in the first place. Not out of some nobility but out of revenge. Didn't seem honourable.

He had to have hope. He had to have hope that someday they would throw off the yoke of oppression, that someday the Jao would _leave_. But with every year Tully wondered if they were only digging in deeper. After all, that refugee hellhole where he grew up is _still there_. It was supposed to be a temporary site.

***

Tully let Subcommandant Aille open his own doors and hopped out of the jeep quickly to stand in front of him. He figured he knew the score by now and set off towards the hangar, expecting the other two to follow him, hoping Yaut wouldn't follow him for blows.

There was no beating today. 

He must have gotten something right. He had no idea _what_. He looked over to Yaut, expecting a strike, but instead Yaut caught his eye and there was a twitch of his whiskers and a certain set of his fingers and wrists that... 

Something in the movement jogged Tully's memory. It was gratitude, it was some kind of reward. And not just the reward of not being beaten, Yaut was _satisfied_.

Goddamn, thought Tully, he's Pavloving me, isn't he? _But how?_ They'd given Tully nothing he wasn't already getting! Food, shelter? The base provided that. Yaut had been detrimental for him - bruises here, scabs there. Oh, Tully hadn't broken a bone yet, but he was sure threatened, and Yaut _knew_ Tully spoke enough Jao so when he said he'd take off a toe or finger or two, he knew Tully could understand him.

One thing was for certain, _fraghta_ meant trainer, alright. That was Yaut's angle here for sure.

Maybe if Tully could work out _how_ he was being trained, he could figure out how to manufacture the right tells to get Yaut's guard down, so he could get that damn shock collar trigger and get out of here.

***

"Where _did_ you learn Jao," wondered the Subcommandant one day.

Probably because Tully's Jao was so much better than Aguilera's. Well, Aguilera, their newest recruit, spent his time fixing stuff and tinkering, and he was an old-timer, he had a whole life, a whole career, before the Jao upended that twenty years ago. Twenty years ago Gabe was a kid.

But Tully couldn't just meander his way through a response, or lie either - Yaut would know, and he had already prepared his hand for a blow. There was a muscle in his forearm that flexed and jolted out as it did so, and that was the preparation for a blow that Tully had grown to recognise. He'd better speak before Yaut made him squawk.

"I was young enough that it was easy for me," said Tully. "Human children absorb languages more readily than adults. It made me an asset in -" In the refugee camp. But those were not really details fit for the Subcommandant. "In my youth," he decided instead, "and it made me even more an asset to my family." 

"Did they learn no words themselves?"

Tully shook his head. Yaut saw it and flicked him hard on the ear.

Of course not, how could they? His parents were too old and Elisa disappeared. The old ire raised its head again, and Tully's skin prickled with it. 

"I figured out how to be clever enough to use it to cajole food out of the Jao officers where I lived," he explained. This story was a bit satisfying for him, because it showed that the Jao _could_ be manipulated, you just had to know where to hit, so to speak. And because Subcommandant Aille had dared to ask about his family - how _dare_ he - Tully was a bit sore. "That's how I figured out that Jao food isn't exactly a delicacy, and doesn't digest well, but it's better than nothing when it sits in the belly."

I learned because I had to _feed_ people, he fell short of saying. Aille hummed and his ears folded back and his second and third fingers relaxed, the first extended. (Whatever _that_ meant.)

But Yaut made that pleased motion again and remarked, "Where we come from, that is vithrik."

"What is," said Tully mulishly, but Yaut did not explain further.

***

Yaut showed him around the ship that had so attracted Tully's attention that he got himself sucked into the Subcommandant's personal service. Tully looked around, not daring to touch anything, and Yaut hit him for it.

So Tully reached out for the first shiny light, and Yaut hit him for that, too!

"Get to it," grunted Yaut, "you _said_ you wanted to be certified to work on a Jao ship."

"Yeah, well, what do you want from me," snapped Tully. "I learn by doing and you keep friggin' hitting me!"

Yaut gave him the look like he was going to get himself back-handed for the attitude again. Tully flinched away out of reach and Yaut took a step forward to strike him anyway. Tully supposed he should've seen that coming - can't get out of punishment when you can't undo the crime.

But Yaut did sit Tully down later in front of the computer terminal in the Subcommandant's quarters. "Well?" he said.

Well what, was on the tip of Tully's tongue. This time he held it and reached out for the computer.

Interacting with it was a bitch, because every wrong move Tully made (and there were many) got him swatted like a fly. Yaut had to get tired at some point, though, so Tully kept at it. Eventually, with Yaut's _assistance_ , Tully managed something that started up what looked like a flight simulator program.

He fully expected Yaut to guide him the whole way, less than helpfully, into the proper sequence of movements. But once Yaut saw that he had the hang of it, he hung back and left Tully at the helm. Fine by Tully, honestly. 

He lost himself in the game. It wasn't really a game, it couldn't be, because the Jao didn't seem to have those, they just had stuff that made them useful. But it was so much like the games Tully used to play in the refugee camp and in the resistance during downtime! Once he had the hang of it it was almost therapeutic to target the ships in so many ways like he was trained to do - capture the flag, skirmishes against a larger force, ambush, sabotage, hit-and-run, assault on a convoy... For a sacred moment, Tully thought that maybe Jao were not so alien, really... maybe he could even forget that they were dangerous, that they were an occupying force...

No. No, he couldn't ever forget that.

Yaut watched him and his progress with hawkish black eyes and a stroke of green danced inside them like the northern lights did in the sky. "What," said Tully, a little uncomfortable. "You don't like the way I'm playing, I'm sure you'll let me know."

"Ordinarily I would," Yaut replied. "But I have already hit you enough today and my patience has elapsed. Which means I might actually do _damage_ , as I would need to hit you much worse for this."

"What's so wrong with it?" Tully'd been doing well. High scores.

"Those ways," pointed out Yaut, "are not vithrik."

Tully rolled his eyes when Yaut finally turned away and couldn't see it. Not vithrik. Not honourable, he figured. Maybe vithrik was honour.

He wouldn't disagree. But if it weren't for the Jao in the first place they wouldn't have to resort to such tactics. 

Tully told himself, not for the first time, that he was doing this for a reason. He was getting access to information that would be useful for the Resistance. He'd take it with him when he finally was able to escape. And then there'd be no more games to play.

***

_The orange mushroom is chasing him again. It turns into Yaut, and Tully shrinks back, expecting to be hit, but a monstrously large Yaut - like Godzilla if he were a sea lion - plucks him up off the ground._

_Yaut is grinning, with wide eyes, black like deep space as they peer into Tully and see everything. They see his training, they see his experience at the camps, they see every terrible secret he's ever had and Yaut's assumed the awful posture of triumphant-vindication -_

Tully awoke in a cold sweat, alone in a pitch dark room. The realisation had dawned upon him: the way he played gave Yaut everything he needed to know about Tully's talents. He didn't admit aloud he was Resistance - he didn't have to. 

I have to get out of here, he thought, if I stay any longer they'll change me.

The following morning Tully concentrated on being a closed book, hard-to-read, difficult-to-interpret. Maybe if he spent extra long visualising himself a thicker skin, Yaut wouldn't so easily be able to penetrate his defences.

Tully didn't realise until Yaut gave him that pleased-reward look that Tully had in fact done everything correctly today, reflexively and unknowingly. He wasn't even thinking about it - he didn't have the processing power to think about it - it was all automatic attention to fall into line in front of the Subcommandant. The perfect jinau troop shaped by Yaut's hands - literally.

"Good," said Yaut, "you've learned something." He lowered his voice to a dangerous purr, steel and strength and power behind it, and Tully knew he'd been caught. "I too have learned something."

Tully waited, guard up, for a blow that never came - this time. So he kept waiting.


End file.
